Akismet – prevents spam in comments or spam comments. Sometimes ugly people try to place links to dodgy websites or other rubbis. Instead removing manually many posts per day, it is better to have it fixed with Akismet. Subscription in Akismet is not free, but it is worth money if you really get many comments – saving your time you can save money.

Contact Form 7 – standard contact form with very easy and quick installation. Comes with default standard setup of options – installed, activated and set to work within seconds. This is a very useful form which can be expanded into more advanced form, with attaching files. Contact Form 7 can integrate Google ReCaptcha for form submission authentication mechanism.

Flamingo (for Contact Form 7) – this is a very simple plugin which should be installed with Contact Form 7 plugin. Flamingo job is to store submitted forms content – a very useful option if for some reason your email system can be down and submitted form content can be lost.

W3 Total Cache – first of all: reduces download time and improves server performance, which means that pages are opened quicker and user experience is much better. W3 Total Cache is essential for busy websites located on very busy shared hosting, where you need to wait ages before page opens.

WP Super Cache – works in similar way like W3 Total Cache, but preferred by some WordPress themes developers (due to some deep technical issues related to browsers caching, layout CSS/JavaScript etc etc very boring stuff), also very good, use it when advised in a theme documentation.

Yoast SEO – improves SEO performance of your website. Essential plugin if you want to get better visibility of your blog in searching engines and your WordPress theme doesn’t have its own SEO settings. It comes with sitemap, so you don’t need to use another sitemap plugin.

Redirection – this plugin is essential when you develop your website or modify it very often and move some content from one URL address – use this plugin to avoid 404 page.

WooCommerce – most probably the best plugin if you want to start an online shop. Highly flexible, well documented, comest with PayPal, Cheques, Cash on Delivery and Direct Bank Transfer payment systems. Other online payment processing systems can be added via – usually – free plugins.